The Lady Next Door (18 page)

“You know very well that was a trial. If I had been acquitted . . . But I was not.”

Latteridge noted the slight tightening of her lips, nothing else. Absently, he picked up a pebble and tossed it into the stream. “That was eight years ago, and this is York, not London.” His voice was almost impatient.

“Do you think I lack the courage to face them?” Her eyes flashed momentarily, then shrank before his. “Perhaps I do. There is always someone who remembers, some tenacious, sordid memory stored away, ready to be recalled. And then the clusters of whispering groups, the hostile eyes. You see, after Aunt Effie and I retired to Hampstead, I thought time might heal the damage. Four years we waited, years that seemed an eternity to me . . . but not to one old roué. We attended an assembly there and this . . . gentleman approached me for a dance. His countenance betrayed his knowledge, his hopes, I might even say. I refused him. Within the hour I was the object of every eye in the room and the Master of Ceremonies was approaching. I would not suffer that final disgrace, and we left. How can you think it would be different here, especially since your mother has come to town?”

“It wouldn’t be different, I dare say,” he murmured, “but wouldn’t you like to face them all down?”

“To what purpose? Just to prove that I’ve developed a skin thick enough to ignore their horrified gazes?” Marianne rose and paced along the grassy bank. “I don’t think you understand, my lord. What others think of me is of little concern. I know the truth. That is enough. Usually. I have no desire to make other people uncomfortable. My attendance at an assembly would be upsetting not to the gossips, who would find it delightful conversation for weeks, but to those who sincerely believe that my presence is a threat to the moral tone of society.” She read his amusement where he still sat following her progress with his eyes and said sternly, “It is no laughing matter. If young girls entering society saw that their elders made no distinction between the virtuous and the . . . the impure, where would be the incentive to lead a moral life?”

The earl attempted valiantly to keep a straight face, but he was not successful. First his lips twitched, then his shoulders shook, and finally, the wicked man, he burst out laughing. Marianne, hands on hips, stood before him, glaring uncompromisingly on his unseemly mirth. But her outrage had no effect on him; he merely laughed the harder. When he at last gained a measure of control over his mirth, he rose to his feet and Marianne turned away from him, embarrassed by the delight still dancing in his eyes.

“My dear Miss Findlay,” he said to her stiff back, “don’t you see how ludicrous it is for you to take such a stand? A lady falsely accused of immorality refuses to go out in society because her supposed immorality might lead others astray?”

“It’s true, nonetheless,” she retorted fiercely, though she allowed him to turn her around and stood breathlessly still when he did not remove his hands from her shoulders.

“I think you have allowed your sense of humor to desert you on this point,” he told her seriously, surveying the wary face before him. “Or are you only able to see the absurdities of your companions, and not yourself?”

Stung, she shrugged away his hands. “I don’t consider people’s enthusiasms to be absurdities, and I assure you that I don’t take myself any more seriously than those around me. There is a substantial difference, however, in contemplating such little oddities as I may previously have mentioned, and the situation we are now discussing. You would not have introduced your sister Louisa into my home had you believed me to be a wanton woman, would you?”

In spite of himself, the earl could not resist grinning. He was aware of her earnest gravity, but such words as "impure” and “wanton” issuing from her lips was too much to be borne. “I had no idea there was this streak of propriety in you, Miss Findlay. Much sooner would I have supposed you wouldn’t care a fig for such things as appearances."

His choice of words was not perhaps felicitous. Although his only intention had been to tease her out of her rigid if estimable stand, Marianne regarded him with owlishly disbelieving eyes. “Just what is it you do believe about me, Lord Latteridge?” She could not resist glancing quickly past him to where the horses stood.

“For God’s sake, don’t be a goose! I’m not Sir Reginald! Have I not told you that Susan wrote to me? I promise you I consider your virtue beyond question.”

Marianne drew herself up to her most dignified height. “And what does Sir Reginald believe?”

“Who cares what the devil he believes?” Latteridge responded with asperity, annoyed with himself for such a careless slip.

“I care, of course. Not about what he thinks, but about what he says. Is he spreading malicious gossip about me in York?”

Latteridge shook his head uncertainly. “I really don’t know. You annoyed him over the explosion, and he has twice tried to denigrate you to me. Whether he does so with others . . ."

“Well, of course he does. Have you ever met one of his kind who didn’t use their meager mental powers to find fault with anyone who dared to cross him?” Marianne frowned. “How does he happen to know about what happened so long ago?”

“He doesn’t. He bases his suppositions on your taking lodgers.”

“With Aunt Effie in the house?” she asked incredulously.

“I don’t think he’s met your aunt.” Latteridge observed with satisfaction the delightful dimple that emerged when she chuckled.

“Ah, well, that explains it. Perhaps I should arrange for him to make my aunt’s acquaintance. That would repay him for his scandalous conclusions.”

“A very wise precaution,” the earl murmured as he straightened her disarranged bonnet. “Will you allow me to escort you to the next assembly?”

“Thank you, no. I realize you would like to undo what has been done, but it’s not possible, my lord. I’m quite content as things are. At my age, and with my new occupation, assemblies are a thing of the past in any case. Sometimes we have a dance at the Whixleys, you know, and among friends . . . Your sister is the one you will be escorting, and nothing should stand in the way of her enjoying her introduction to society.”

“She would be only too pleased to share the occasion with you.”

Marianne shook her head. “Nonsense. And even if she were, your mother . . . Well, there is no need to say how your mother would react.”

“I am more than capable of seeing that my mother behaves properly,” he said shortly.

“Are you? Yes, I believe you are. But my answer stands, Lord Latteridge.” She turned aside from him then and went to the mare. “Shall we go?”

"Of course.” When he had handed her onto the mare, she asked his opinion of the shaky nature of the current government, and whether he expected to see a change of administration. He had no choice but to go along with the change of subject.

Chapter Fourteen

Lady Louisa had intended to waylay her brother on his return to prepare him for their mother’s latest storm, but she had ducked into the kitchens for a moment to satisfy her curiosity about the new turnspit, when he walked, all unsuspecting, into the house. Lady Latteridge had disposed herself in the closest room to the hall, the door open, and her workbasket untouched, so that she might concentrate her entire attention on listening for her son’s footsteps. When they came, she instantly rose to her feet and stood in the doorway saying only, “Pressington.”

Her ominous tone might have shattered the composure of her minions, but the earl smiled. “Mother. Would you not be more comfortable in the drawing room?”

“I will not be comfortable anywhere until I have had a word with you.”

“I see. Well, let me just change out of my riding clothes and I’ll join you in the drawing room.”

Lady Latteridge clenched her hands in an agony of impatience. "The matter is urgent. This once you may join me in your dusty condition.”

Murmuring his gratitude at such condescension, he followed her into the cheerless antechamber where she had awaited him and, although she waved him to a chair, he chose to stand by the window, his hands clasped lightly behind him and a polite air of attention about his countenance. Sure that she would launch directly into her subject, he made no attempt to speak.

“It has come to my attention that Marianne Findlay lives in York and that you have taken Louisa to visit her. I will not allow it! That my daughter should associate with a woman of the grossest of morals is not to be tolerated. You should be sunk in shame for such an action. Your own sister! Have you no sense of what is fitting?” Under his cold stare she abruptly stopped speaking.

“Have you no sense of justice at all, Mother?” he asked, his voice as cold as his eyes. “Are you not content with persecuting that poor girl eight years ago without dredging up your infamy? Do you intend to reopen a matter which sheds such a deplorable light on your own character?”

“My character! You are misinformed, Pressington. I’m not surprised, if you have had your information from that empty-headed sister of yours, but you will please to speak to your mother with the respect which should be shown her.” Lady Latteridge sat unbending in her indignation and dignity, but her son was not to be intimidated.

“Perhaps you forget, Mother, that I am the head of the family now, and responsible for the behavior of all of us. I should like to hear your justification for the way you treated Miss Findlay.” When she did not reply, he said, “Come now, Mother. What was Miss Findlay’s crime?”

"She spent the night alone with her cousin.”

"I see. And how do you know that?”

“Everyone knew it.”

“In other words, common gossip. You surprise me, Mother.”

But Lady Latteridge did not flinch under his disdainful tone. “Her father made no secret of the fact.”

“Did he tell you personally, Mother?”

“No, of course not, but I had it on the best authority.”

“Whose?”

“Your cousin Charles,” she said triumphantly. In the whole course of his life, no one had ever doubted one word which sprang from Charles Hastings’s lips, since he was an uncommonly pious fellow, not only a believer in Methodism, but addicted to it.

“And what did Charles tell you?”

“He was in a coffeehouse where Sir Edward Findlay proclaimed that his daughter had run off with her cousin.”

Latteridge tapped the windowsill like a judge calling the court to order. “If you expect me to believe you, Mother, you had best be more precise in your wording. ‘Run off with’ denotes a willingness on the part of both participants.”

“What does it matter?” she complained petulantly. “She spent a night, alone, with a man.”

“I should think it made a great deal of difference. Did Sir Edward, or did he not, profess to have taken part in a plan to have his daughter abducted by her cousin?”

“So Charles said; he was livid.”

“And so should you have been, Mother. Instead of the treatment you accorded the girl, in all humanity you should have helped her through such a trying evening. She was, after all, Susan’s friend.”

Lady Latteridge’s nostrils flared. “You never saw Selby with her! They had a thousand little familiarities. She knew how he took his tea, what he thought of Pelham and Pitt, Halifax and Bedford, what his tutor’s name was, where he’d traveled on the continent. Susan knew nothing! All she could do was watch him with big sheep’s eyes and listen to him talk, enthralled. Miss Findlay was entirely at ease with him; Susan went red whenever he entered a room. Now I ask you, Pressington, which of the two was he the more likely to wish to marry—inane little Susan, or the self-possessed Miss Findlay?”

“As I understand it, Mother, he had already expressed his intention of marrying Susan.”

“But it wasn’t announced! And Susan would have done anything for Miss Findlay, even renounce Selby’s suit.”

“You are being absurd. If she were that much in love with him, no influence of Miss Findlay’s would have swayed her. Miss Findlay and Selby had grown up together. If they had wanted to marry, I’m sure they would have done so.” Latteridge regarded his mother with a sorrowful shake of his head. “You saw bogeymen where none existed, Mother.”

“None of that is to the point,” she snapped. “Miss Findlay had the nerve to attend a ball where everyone knew of her damaged reputation. What unmitigated gall! And the first thing she did when she entered the room was look to Susan to champion her. I saw it at once and put a stop to it! The daughter of an earl does not associate with a strumpet!”

“A strumpet,” mused the earl, remembering the words Miss Findlay had used but a short time previously. “A poor girl abducted, possibly raped, and you call her a strumpet.” For a moment he stared out the window into the sun-baked street, oblivious to the passersby. All his life he had considered his mother cantankerous: frequently rude, always haughty, often irrational, occasionally malicious. He had found extenuating circumstances; somehow in this particular case, for whatever reason, he could not. To play God in someone’s life, to wantonly destroy it, was something he could not, would not, understand. “Louisa may see Miss Findlay whenever she pleases. If you attempt in any way to hinder her, I will send you back to Ackton Towers.”

Lady Latteridge watched incredulously as, with a nod, he paced to the door and turned the knob. Her voice was shrill when she called, “You forget, Pressington, that once a lady’s reputation is shattered, she has nowhere to turn but to a life of degradation. I have not the least doubt that during these last eight years she has been the kept mistress of any number of men.”

“Haven’t you, Mother?” The normally kindly eyes were filled with bitter reproach. “Is that what you would like to have seen become of Miss Findlay? I’m sorry to disappoint you. She lives next door with her Aunt Effington and takes lodgers because her father has disowned her. Do you know Miss Effington, Mother? I think you must. She has lived with her niece since you and her father and her cousin ruined her. I doubt anyone with even the smallest intention of attempting Miss Findlay’s virtue would get past Miss Effington.” Instead of leaving then as he had intended, the earl leaned against the panels of the door and held his mother’s eyes by sheer force of will.